Removing lines from excel

Excel is an awesome tool. The more I learn about it the more I fall in love with it.

The team that has built Excel has put in a lot of thinking behind it and they continuously work on improving the user experience.

But there are still somethings that I find irritating and often need to change the default settings.

And one such thing is dotted lines in the worksheet in Excel.

In this tutorial, I will show you the possible reasons why these dotted lines appear and how to remove these dotted lines.

So let’s get started!

Possible Reasons for Dotted Lines in Excel

There can be various reasons for the dotted lines to appear in Excel:

1. Due to Page breaks where Excel visually show page breaks as dotted lines
2. Borders that have been set to show as dotted lines
3. Gridlines that appear in the whole worksheet. These are not really dotted lines (rather faint solid lines that looks like dotted borders around the cells)

Your worksheet can have any one or more of these settings and you can easily remove these lines and disable it.

How to Remove Dotted Lines in Excel

Let’s dive in and see how to remove these dotted lines in Excel in each scenario.

Removing the Page Break Dotted Lines

This is one of the most irritating things for me in Excel. Sometimes, I see these page-breaks dotted lines (as shown below) that just refuse to go away.

Now, I understand the utility and purpose of keeping these. It divides your worksheet into sections and you would know what part will be printed on one page and what will spill over.

A super easy (but not ideal) fix of this is to close the workbook and open again. Reopening a workbook will remove the page break dotted lines.

Here is a better way to remove these dotted lines:

1. Click on the File tab
2. Click on Options
3. In the Excel Options dialog box that opens, click on the Advanced option in the left pane
4. Scroll down to the section – “Display options for this worksheet”
5. Uncheck the option – “Show page breaks”

The above steps would stop showing the page break dotted line for the workbook.

Note that the above steps would stop showing the dotted lines only for the workbook in which you have unchecked this option. For other workbooks, you will have to repeat the same process if you want to get rid of the dotted lines.

In case you have set the print area in the worksheet, the dotted lines will not be shown. Instead, you will see solid lined outlining the print area.

Removing Dotted Lines Border

In some cases (not as common as page break though), people may use dotted lines as the border.

Something as shown below:

To remove these dotted lines, you can either remove the border completely or change the dotted line border to the regular solid line border.

Below are the steps to remove these dotted borders:

1. Select the cells from which you want to remove the dotted border
2. Click the Home tab
3. In the Font group, click on the ‘Border’ drop-down
4. In the border options that appear, click on ‘No Border’

The above steps would remove any borders in the selected cells.

In case you want to replace the dotted border with some other type of border, you can do that as well.

Removing Gridlines

While the gridlines are not dotted lines (these are solid lines), some people still think that these look like dotted lines (as these are quite faint).

These gridlines are applied to the entire worksheet and you can easily make them disappear.

Below are the steps to remove these:

1. Click on the View tab
2. In the Show group, uncheck the Gridlines option

That’s it! The above steps would remove all the gridlines from the worksheet. In case you want the Gridlines back, simply go back and check the same option.

So these are three ways you can remove the dotted lines in Excel.

I hope you found this tutorial useful!

Some Other Excel tutorials you may also like:

• How to Remove Line Breaks in Excel
• How to Remove Table Formatting in Excel
• Use Format Painter in Excel to Quickly Copy Formatting
• How to Split a Cell Diagonally in Excel (Insert Diagonal Line)
• How to Insert/Draw a Line in Excel (Straight Line, Arrows, Connectors)

Specific line and bar types are available in 2-D stacked bar and column charts, line charts, pie of pie and bar of pie charts, area charts, and stock charts.

You can add other lines to any data series in an area, bar, column, line, stock, xy (scatter), or bubble chart that is 2-D and not stacked.

Do you desire a clean and accurate spreadsheet? Learn how to remove gridlines in Excel using this tutorial. Gridlines are the faint grey vertical and horizontal lines visible in the Excel spreadsheet that differentiate cells. Because of these gridlines, you can tell where information begins or ends.

The central idea of Excel is to arrange data in rows and columns. Therefore, grid lines are a common sight in spreadsheets. What’s more, you need not draw cell borders to highlight your table. 

However, you can remove gridlines in Excel 2016 to clean your spreadsheet and make it more presentable. This guide teaches you how to remove gridlines in Excel effortlessly. 

Jump to Section:

• Uses of Grid Lines
• TL: DR: Watch How to Remove Gridlines from Excel
• Option1: View and Page Layout Option
• Option 2: Change Background Color
• Option 3: Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)
• How to remove gridlines on the entire workbook using VBA
• How to Remove Gridlines in Microsoft Excel for specific Cells
• Tips on How to Remove Gridlines in Microsoft Excel 2010
• How to Remove Gridlines in Excel 2013
• Limitations of Gridlines
• Tips to Remember when Removing Gridlines in Excel

Uses of Grid Lines

1. Gridlines help you to differentiate cell borders in your spreadsheet
2. They give you a visual clue when aligning objects and images within the workbook.
3. Finally, they enhance the readability of your tables or charts that lack borders.

Let’s get started on how to remove gridlines in Excel.

TL: DR: Watch How to Remove Gridlines from Excel

Option1: View and Page Layout Option

The good news is that there is a default option to hide the gridlines in Excel.

1.  Navigate to the “View” ribbon on the Excel Spreadsheet.
   
   
2. Locate the “Gridlines” checkbox and uncheck. Unchecking the gridlines hides them automatically.
   
   
3. Alternatively, Navigate to the “Page Layout” Tab.
4. Uncheck “View” ribbon to remove or hide the gridlines.
   
5. However, to print the gridlines, Check the “Print” option under the Gridlines on the “Page Layout.” 

To apply these changes in all the sheets in the workbook:

1. Right-click any sheet tab at the bottom of the workbook.
2. Choose “Select All” from the drop-down menu.
3. Now, uncheck the gridlines box to hide all the lines in the entire workbook.

Option 2: Change Background Color

You can remove gridlines by changing the background color to match the worksheet area. Here’s how.

1. First, highlight the rows and columns of your spreadsheet. Alternatively, you can use “CTRL+C.”
2. Navigate to the Home Tab and click “Fill Color.”
3. Next, select White Color and apply.

After that, all the gridlines will be hidden from view.

Option 3: Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)

Excel has an in-built programming code that allows you to disable gridlines automatically.

Add the Developer tab

You need to create and manage macros through the developer tab. However, if you don’t have this tab, you need to activate it through these steps: 

1. Navigate to the Excel Options on the File Menu.
2. Click on Customize Ribbons.
3. Tick the “Developer” ribbon.
4. Click Ok to add “Developer Tab” on your spreadsheet.
   
   

Insert your VBA module

Fortunately, Excel allows you to copy-paste your code directly from the internet.

1. Click on the “Developer Tab”.
2. On the left-most side of the tab, select the “Visual Basic” ribbon.
3. Now, right-click on the “VBAProject that contains your workbook name.
4. From the drop-down menu, select “Insert” and click on “Module.”

You have now created a new Excel code. Start typing the code or copy and paste it from another source.

How to remove gridlines on the entire workbook using VBA

1. Click on the “Developer” tab on the Excel spreadsheet.
2. Next, click on insert and select the “Command” button on the “Active X Controls.”
   
   
3. Double-click the “Command Button” on the work area.
   
   
4. Type or copy-paste your code on the dialog box and close the dialog box:
   Sub Hide_Gridlines()
   Dim ws As Worksheet
   ‘hide gridlines in a workbook
   For Each ws In Worksheets
   ws.Activate
   ActiveWindow.DisplayGridlines = False
   Next ws
   End Sub
   
   
5. Next, click on the “Macros” ribbon and run the code. The code hides the gridlines in the entire workbook.
   

You can learn more about Excel’s VBA here.

How to Remove Gridlines in Microsoft Excel for specific Cells

If you want to remove gridlines in Excel for particular cells, the best option is to apply white borders. Alternatively, you can change the background to white. You now know how to change the spreadsheet’s background color.

Here’s how to color your borders and disable the gridlines. 

1. First, select the range you wish to remove the gridlines. Hold the SHIFT key and press the last cell in the desired range.
2. Alternatively, Click CTRL+A to select the entire sheet.
3. Next, right-click the selected cell range. From the drop-down menu, select “Format Cells.” 
4. Alternatively, click “CTRL+1 to display the Format Cells Dialog box.
5. Now, in the Format Cells Window, select the “Border” Tab.
6. Choose white from the Color ribbon. 
7. Under presets, click both the outline and inside buttons.
   
   
8. Click OK to confirm the changes.
   
   

Well, you’ll notice that the particular specific cells lack gridlines just like you wanted. To undo the gridlines, choose none under the presets tab. 

Tips on How to Remove Gridlines in Microsoft Excel 2010

These steps of removing gridlines apply to Excel 2010 as well. If you find these gridlines are distracting or unattractive, switch them off. However, you cannot delete these gridlines permanently. Instead, Excel lets you disable grid lines in the current spreadsheet.

Here’s how to remove gridlines from the current spreadsheet in Excel 2010:

• Open the desired Excel Worksheet.
• Navigate to the “File” menu and select “Options”.
• Click “Advanced” from the “Excel Options” Dialog Box.
• Scroll down to “Display Options for this Worksheet”.
• Uncheck the “Gridlines” checkbox.
• Click OK to disable lines in the current sheet.
• Alternatively, you can choose to change the gridline colors from the “Gridline Color”.

How to Remove Gridlines in Excel 2013

Removing grid lines gives makes your presentation attractive. To get rid of gridlines in Excel 2013, follow these quick but straightforward steps. However, you can check for other options suitable to this Excel version in this guide. 

• Open the Excel 2013 worksheet.
• Click on the “Page Layout” Tab.
• Locate the “Gridlines” and uncheck the “View” or “Print” button as you desire.

Alternatively;

• Open your spreadsheet in Excel 2013.
• Click the “View” tab.
• Then uncheck the “Gridlines” ribbon to hide the lines.

Limitations of Gridlines

• Gridlines cannot be printed if an Excel printout is required.
• These lines are light in color. Thus, colorblind people are unable to identify their color.
• You cannot customize gridlines.

Tips to Remember when Removing Gridlines in Excel

1. Use borders when printing an Excel workbook. Otherwise, the gridlines will not be printed. 
2. Applying white color to the selected cell range removes gridlines.
3. Remove the gridlines once you complete your work to avoid confusion and make your work presentable.

If you want a professional document, learn how to remove gridlines in Excel. Hiding or removing these lines gives your report a clean and attractive look.

Conclusion 

You see, there are different ways to show and hide gridlines in Excel. Just choose the one that will work best for you. If you know any other methods of showing and removing cell lines, you are welcome to share them with other users

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I have multiline text in a single Excel cell. I want to remove all blank lines from that text. I must be clear that I do not want to remove all line breaks.

Example A:

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,

And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight

To cool in the peppermint wind.

…should translate to:

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Example B:

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight

To cool in the peppermint wind.

…should translate to:

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

I want to remove blank lines because:

• Viewing the spreadsheet, it may look like some cells are empty, but in reality they do have text after several empty lines;

• I need to clean the data for import into another storage solution

Microsoft has some documentation on how to remove spaces in Excel.

But it does not specifically describe a solution for removing blank lines:

• CLEAN function
• TRIM function
• Top ten ways to clean your data